“To throw away an honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Time, which sees all things, has found you out.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“How dreadful the knowledge of the truth can be
When there’s no help in truth.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Alas, how terrible is wisdom
when it brings no profit to the man that's wise!
This I knew well, but had forgotten it,
else I would not have come here.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“The tyrant is a child of Pride
Who drinks from his sickening cup
Recklessness and vanity,
Until from his high crest headlong
He plummets to the dust of hope.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Oblivion - what a blessing...for the mind to dwell a world away from pain.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“All my care is you, and all my pleasure yours.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“How terrible-- to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees!”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“In time you will know this well: For time, and time alone, will show the just man, though scoundrels are discovered in a day. ”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Let every man in mankind's frailty consider his last day; and let none presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“...count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“The pain we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Whatever is sought for can be caught, you know, whatever is neglected slips away.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“It's perfect justice: natures like yours are hardest on themselves.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Weep not, everything must have its day.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Never honor the gods in one breath and take the gods for fools the next.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“They are dying, the old oracles sent to Laius, now our masters strike them off the rolls. Nowhere Apollo's golden glory now -- the gods, the gods go down.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“And if you find I've lied, from this day on call the prophet blind.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Give me a life wherever there is an opportunity to live, and better life than was my father's.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“(...) I, for one, prize less
The name of king than deeds of kingly power;
And so would all who learn in wisdom’s school.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“يا أجيال البشر، إنكم من وجهة نظري لستم سوى أشباح فإن الواحد منكم يحصل على نصيب من السعادة لا يتعدى المظهر الخادع، ثم ما يلبث أن يذبل ويختفي.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“فمن الأفضل لك ،إذا كنت ستواصل حكم هذه المدينة،كما تحكمها الآن، أن تحكمها وهي مليئة بالبشر، لا خالية منهم
فإن أي برج أو سفينة لا يكون له قيمة إذا كان خالياً من البشر الذين يعيشون داخله.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“A sight to touch e’en hatred’s self with pity.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“King as thou art, free speech at least is mine. To make reply; in this I am thy peer.”
― Sophocles, quote from Oedipus Rex
“Me he quitado la venda de los ojos, Pel. Y ahora, por primera vez, veo lo que me estaba perdiendo”
― Sylvia Day, quote from The Stranger I Married
“it matters less how much more you make than what you do with what you already have.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy
“He had a singularly charming smile, and it ensured for him, no matter how exacting might be his demands, the uncomplaining exertions of his servants. He was perfectly well aware of that, just as he was aware of the value of the word of praise dropped at exactly the right moment; and he would have thought himself extremely stupid to withhold what cost him so little and was productive of such desirable results.”
― Georgette Heyer, quote from Sylvester
“The road lay long and black ahead of them and the heat was coming now through the thin soles of their shoes. There were young beans pushing up from the dry brown fields, tiny rows of green sprigs that stretched away in the distance.”
― Larry Brown, quote from Joe
“We have good news and bad news. The good news is that the dismal vision of human sexuality reflected in the standard narrative is mistaken. Men have not evolved to be deceitful cads, nor have millions of years shaped women into lying, two-timing gold-diggers. But the bad news is that the amoral agencies of evolution have created in us a species with a secret it just can’t keep. Homo sapiens evolved to be shamelessly, undeniably, inescapably sexual. Lusty libertines. Rakes, rogues, and roués. Tomcats and sex kittens. Horndogs. Bitches in heat.1 True, some of us manage to rise above this aspect of our nature (or to sink below it). But these preconscious impulses remain our biological baseline, our reference point, the zero in our own personal number system. Our evolved tendencies are considered “normal” by the body each of us occupies. Willpower fortified with plenty of guilt, fear, shame, and mutilation of body and soul may provide some control over these urges and impulses. Sometimes. Occasionally. Once in a blue moon. But even when controlled, they refuse to be ignored. As German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.) Acknowledged or not, these evolved yearnings persist and clamor for our attention. And there are costs involved in denying one’s evolved sexual nature, costs paid by individuals, couples, families, and societies every day and every night. They are paid in what E. O. Wilson called “the less tangible currency of human happiness that must be spent to circumvent our natural predispositions.”2 Whether or not our society’s investment in sexual repression is a net gain or loss is a question for another time. For now, we’ll just suggest that trying to rise above nature is always a risky, exhausting endeavor, often resulting in spectacular collapse. Any attempt to understand who we are, how we got to be this way, and what to do about it must begin by facing up to our evolved human sexual predispositions. Why do so many forces resist our sustained fulfillment? Why is conventional marriage so much damned work? How has the incessant, grinding campaign of socio-scientific insistence upon the naturalness of sexual monogamy combined with a couple thousand years of fire and brimstone failed to rid even the priests, preachers, politicians, and professors of their prohibited desires? To see ourselves as we are, we must begin by acknowledging that of all Earth’s creatures, none is as urgently, creatively, and constantly sexual as Homo sapiens.”
― Christopher Ryan, quote from Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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